Bihar: After long wait, work on SAV campus set to begin

Eleven years after its establishment, for Simultala Awasiya Vidyalay (SAV), billed as Bihar’s answer to undivided state’s pride Netarhat Vidyalay, things have finally started moving for the institution

Eleven years after its establishment, for Simultala Awasiya Vidyalay (SAV), billed as Bihar’s answer to undivided state’s pride Netarhat Vidyalay, things have finally started moving for the institution.

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After the belated finalization of the service condition of its teachers and non-teaching staff, the government is also contemplating to soon lay the foundation stone for its own sprawling campus in Simultala. Officials said chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar may do it online in view of spike in Covid-19 cases.

Bihar education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said, “The government will soon decide the date for the foundation laying of the school.”

Since its inception in 2010, the boarding school, with an annual intake of 120 students (60 boys and 60 girls) through statewide screening test, has been running from rented buildings having prefab structures, though the SAV project was to be initially completed by March 2012.

EdCIL— a public sector undertaking under the Union ministry of education— had also prepared its detailed project report for construction on the 46-acre mostly procured via donation from locals and earmarked for another proposed school Gautam Awasiya Vidyalay (GAV). Later, it was handed over to the SAV Education Society. SAV society had superseded the proposed GAV.

The foundation laying, which was earlier tentatively scheduled this week, could be extended in view of the pandemic. On August 9, 2010 also, the CM had inaugurated the school via video conferencing.

Despite deficiencies in infrastructure, the school has been able to prove its credentials in Class 10 Board exams.

In its debut class 10 board exams in 2015, 19 SAV students had secured more than 96% , a record since the inception of the Bihar board in 1952. A year later, all the 42 students in the top 10 were from SAV, while in 2017, 12 of the 22 students in top 10 were from the same school. In 2018, out of 24 students in top 10, 17 were from SAV, while in 2019 SAV accounted for 16 of the 18 in the top 10.

Last year, however, only three of the SAV students could figure in the top 10 having 41 students, while this year its 13 students figured in the list of 101 students in the top 10.